Welcome to my blog. The fine folks at the BeyeNETWORK™ have provided me with this forum to offer opinion and insight into the worlds of telcommunications (telecom) and business activity monitoring (BAM). But as with any blog, I am sure that we (yes we... since blogging is a "team sport"...) will explore other tangents that intersect the concepts of telecom and BAM.

In this world of "Crossfire" intellectual engagement (i.e. I yell louder therefore I win the argument), I will try to offer my opinion in a constructive manner. If I truly dislike a concept, I will do my best to offer an alternative as opposed to simply attempting to prove my point by disproving someone else's. I ask that people who post to this blog follow in my lead.

John Myers, a senior analyst in the business intelligence
(BI) practice at Enterprise Management Associates (EMA). In this role,
John delivers comprehensive coverage of the business intelligence and data
warehouse industry with a focus on database management, data integration, data
visualization, and process management solutions. Prior to joining EMA, John
spent over ten years working with business analytics implementations associated
with the telecommunications industry.

Recently in IP Based Category

In a heavyweight fight, you often get an early glimpse of the fight to follow as the boxers test each other in round 1. While it isn’t the complete fight ( …unless you are Mike Tyson of the late 1980s… ) or the exact way that the fight will finish, but it gives you a good sense of how things make track. Consider it a leading indicator of rounds 10 to 12.

Personally, I think that the consumer will be the victor in this battle when AT&T, Verizon and Time Warner start selling similar services in the same area(s). The business models of all three may take a hit, but the core value-add that the customer wants and the price point that they will accept will probably be revealed in this “leading indicator” of the fight to come between the upstart IPTV providers and legacy cable providers.

Tom Burton had a recent article that looked at IPTV adoption in the EU. It appears that many implementations are struggling to find the adoption numbers that make investors happy.

I'm not saying that IPTV won't come. However, it is possible that IPTV might come in a form that most established telecoms won't enjoy. It might just be that Internet based, Google-esqe video offerings will dominate the IPTV landscape rather than the HDTV, cable-esqe offerings that have lots of value-add and high ARPU.

Yesterday, Andrea Seabrook has an interesting interview with Jonathan Zittrain about his views on the possible future of the Internet and some of the associated telecommunications aspects: Skype, Tivo, etc.

I do not agree with Zittrain's fears about Internet "censorship". However, I do see the possibility of the telecom organizations who want walled garden content and subsidized equipment limiting the access of the Internet. This would get around the Net Neutrality and "open Internet" aspects of FCC rules.

NOTE - I am not quite willing to "give up" on open devices. In particular, I think that Zittrain misses the fact that the recent FCC auction included an open device spectrum and that the Internet has shown that there is always a way to open free distributed content (ie VoIP, Video, etc) past the guards of the walled garden.

First it was Sprint's customer care policies.... Now, we have a great example of Verizon's. Richard Mullins documents some of the issues associated with Verizon's Tampa Call Center.

I believe that all of these issues exist at some call centers. None of this information is new. However, the interesting part, to me, is the aspects associated with the FiOS up-selling and the customer care issues associated with the new technology. It appears that US providers of IPTV are not just having issues with truck-rolls and connecting users to the service. It also appears that billing those services properly is also having issues.

Again, I believe that these are areas where US-based IPTV vendors need to standardize their policies and procedures as well as their technology to properly serve these new markets.

Sarah Reedy takes a look at the installation times associated with US based IPTV installations. While the results aren't obvious, they are pretty self evident. US IPTV providers take almost double the amount of time that their non-US based brethren do - 5.16 hours vs 3.79 hours.

While the topic was "danced around" in the piece, it needs to be understood that the lack of preparation that often comes with installers on truck-rolls is going to negatively impact the impression of the IPTV product. Yes, it early in the adoption and implementation phases. But, having 3-6 hours of face time with customers should represent confidence in a provider and not leave the impression that they are some-how lucky that there is an image on the TV.

I encourage the telecoms to implement the best practices discussed in Reedy's article before the DirecTv guy shows up and implements in 1-2 hours with similar or better products and services.